Gas Mileage Not Up To Spec

I had a 2004 vfr800 that I bought new and followed the break-in of the engine to the "T" with what the manual said, and was able to pull 45-52mpg out of it. I just bought an 2006 vfr800 used, with 3800miles on the clock and can't seem to get above 39mpg. My ? is, if the other owner didnt follow the break-in properly could this effect my gas mileage. This is the 3rd tank of fuel that ive ran through. By the way both bikes are stock. The 2006 runs great and havent had any issues with it other than poor mileage. Maybe its the Oklahoma wind that ive been riding in for the last few weeks!!

[image: View Post]adam79, on Feb 12 2009, 10:22 PM, said:

I had a 2004 vfr800 that I bought new and followed the break-in of the engine to the "T" with what the manual said, and was able to pull 45-52mpg out of it. I just bought an 2006 vfr800 used, with 3800miles on the clock and can't seem to get above 39mpg. My ? is, if the other owner didnt follow the break-in properly could this effect my gas mileage. This is the 3rd tank of fuel that ive ran through. By the way both bikes are stock. The 2006 runs great and havent had any issues with it other than poor mileage. Maybe its the Oklahoma wind that ive been riding in for the last few weeks!!

Could be any number of things.

Your riding habits could be one of them. Could be the lower VTECH engagement, causing you to run in Fun mode more often. Could be a dirty air filter, faulty thermostat (if stuck open, or partially open, you'll run rich), maybe the plugs are shot...

Give it the good spring tune up, and you should be fine.

I bought my bike as a salvage bike from California (Stolen bike) I didn't know when anything was last done to it. The first things I did was change out all of the fluides, new air filter, new plugs, I mean new everything. All I'm getting is 43mpg highway, and 38-39mpg city.
I don't know what it should be running, but it's better than the 8-13mpg that my truck gets hahaha

Could be the crappy winter fuel.

[image: View Post]MuddDawg, on Feb 12 2009, 09:00 PM, said:

Could be the crappy winter fuel.

+1 I'm hoping

My brand new 07 is getting around 36-37 right now(just over 400 miles on the clock, bought last month), my truck is way off too, usually is these past few winters (all my vehicles).

[image: View Post]CBR_Rod, on Feb 13 2009, 08:24 AM, said:

[image: View Post]MuddDawg, on Feb 12 2009, 09:00 PM, said:

Could be the crappy winter fuel.

+1 I'm hoping

My brand new 07 is getting around 36-37 right now(just over 400 miles on the clock, bought last month), my truck is way off too, usually is these past few winters (all my vehicles).

Many states(maybe all) use oxygenated fuel in winter and this crap seems to drop mpg about 25%. :dry:
Could be that, or a bad T-stat will cause poor mileage too.
I just averaged 40 mpg on my (67k miles) 02 on my 400 mile rippen twisty loop last Sunday. :cool:

btw I would say that 45-52mpg avg. is extremely good for a 6th gen. :huh:

goos site for this type of stuff:



http://www.fuelly.co...0%20interceptor
and my bike:
http://www.fuelly.co...800-interceptor

yep must be a Winter thing, only got 125 miles before reserve kicked in today :blink:

Thanks to gubamint intervention all gas has 10% ethanol, decreasing mpg and raising the cost of food. Brilliant huh.
Your right hand probably has more to do w/ it than anything tho.

Also remember that colder air = denser air and more fuel is needed to keep the Air/Fuel ratio correct. Even without the Ethanol crap they put in fuel you would still see a drop in gas mileage. Fortunately there is a solution to that. Forced induction. They suffer much less due to altitude/temperature fluctuations since so much air in forced in all the time anyway. :laugh:

[image: View Post]mechdziner714, on Feb 13 2009, 12:01 PM, said:

Thanks to gubamint intervention all gas has 10% ethanol, decreasing mpg and raising the cost of food. Brilliant huh.
Your right hand probably has more to do w/ it than anything tho.

Yeah, the only people benefiting from ethanol are corn farmers! Last I read it takes like the equivalent of 1.25-1.5 gallons of petrol to make one gallon of ethanol. :blink: The idea is good the implementation and results are horrendous! :dry: There are much better/efficient bio sources than corn.

[image: View Post]yeswill2k, on Feb 12 2009, 06:50 PM, said:

..... All I'm getting is 43mpg highway, and 38-39mpg city. ...

That is what I get with the 2007 ABS version.

[image: View Post]timmythecop, on Feb 13 2009, 09:43 AM, said:

goos site for this type of stuff:



http://www.fuelly.co...0%20interceptor
and my bike:
http://www.fuelly.co...800-interceptor

Wow, I'm averaging better then that and thought it was sub-par....

http://www.fuelly.co...800-interceptor

Lost a few MPGs when I put the D&D on it though. Think it dropped about 3...

[image: View Post]Baileyrock, on Feb 13 2009, 01:47 PM, said:

[image: View Post]mechdziner714, on Feb 13 2009, 12:01 PM, said:

Thanks to gubamint intervention all gas has 10% ethanol, decreasing mpg and raising the cost of food. Brilliant huh.
Your right hand probably has more to do w/ it than anything tho.

Yeah, the only people benefiting from ethanol are corn farmers! Last I read it takes like the equivalent of 1.25-1.5 gallons of petrol to make one gallon of ethanol. :blink: The idea is good the implementation and results are horrendous! :dry: There are much better/efficient bio sources than corn.

I think the ethanol will be a lot cheaper in the future. The refining tech isn't all in place, so it's going to be more expensive. Friend of mine has been talking about an ethanol refinery he's been working on thats supposed to make the manuf. process a LOT more efficient. Dunno if it's true, but if it is...I wouldn't mind getting half the mileage out of gas that costs a quarter what we're payin now.

I average 38 mpg on my '06. When I do run all highway miles, in 6th gear, I can make 55 mpg.
39 seems normal to me.

Mac

Right now on my 06, im getting around 38 mpg in the cold weather lower 40's today, running up to post tripple. Last week was in the 60's and I was alot harder on the throttle and got about the same.

In the summer normally 42/43.

Being your bike has little milege, sounds normal in this cold weather


I think the stickiness of the tires will effect too, I use to could see 45/47mpg in the 100 plus temps of the summer with harder compound tires and running rural highways sutaining 90mph. Never seen that since running pure sport rubber, and thats been a year and 1/2.

anyway you sound normal, maybe this bike also puts out alittle more than your other.

[image: View Post]vfr_steve, on Feb 13 2009, 11:18 AM, said:

yep must be a Winter thing, only got 125 miles before reserve kicked in today :blink:


are you running at full tempurature? i've never seen that bad in a street enviornment on vfr unless thermo issues

[image: View Post]mechdziner714, on Feb 13 2009, 12:01 PM, said:

Thanks to gubamint intervention all gas has 10% ethanol, decreasing mpg and raising the cost of food. Brilliant huh.
Your right hand probably has more to do w/ it than anything tho.

Ive had the 06 for two weeks now, and only used the V-tec four times, and stick to the hwy 90% of the ride to work. Im sure that ya'll are right about the ethanol and cold weather, and im sure riding into head winds don't help either. Well i quess i shouldn't complain, the bike runs great and looks fantastic!

[image: View Post]Trinith, on Feb 14 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

[image: View Post]timmythecop, on Feb 13 2009, 09:43 AM, said:

goos site for this type of stuff:



http://www.fuelly.co...0%20interceptor
and my bike:
http://www.fuelly.co...800-interceptor

Wow, I'm averaging better then that and thought it was sub-par....

http://www.fuelly.co...800-interceptor

Lost a few MPGs when I put the D&D on it though. Think it dropped about 3...

The funny thing is that we both get exactly 179 miles between fill-ups.

[image: View Post]timmythecop, on Feb 14 2009, 07:04 PM, said:

The funny thing is that we both get exactly 179 miles between fill-ups.


I never noticed that....crazy. With twice as many miles tracked as I have, I guess it's safe to assume I'll be tanking up at 180-ish miles for a long time to come.

My '02 non-ABS has been turning 38-42 around town since I bought it with 2400mi on the clock. Dips for bad t-stats excluded.

After sitting for 8mo while I was over seas, she's dropped to 30mpg maybe pushing 35 on the highway. running the same routes using the same throttle applications as I always have.

Just replaced the air filter so we'll see if that the helps, but I'm not expecting to regain the lost 25%

My fuel mileage is in my sig as well. 39mpg doesnt sound bad.

I am getting horrendous mileage, but I mostly blame it on my commute, which is 25 minutes to go 10 miles. At 150 miles the bar starts to flash, and I usually get 5 gallons in it....so close to 30 MPG. Temps get about where expected given the outside temp and such.

[image: View Post]vanion2, on Feb 13 2009, 01:58 PM, said:

Also remember that colder air = denser air and more fuel is needed to keep the Air/Fuel ratio correct. Even without the Ethanol crap they put in fuel you would still see a drop in gas mileage. Fortunately there is a solution to that. Forced induction. They suffer much less due to altitude/temperature fluctuations since so much air in forced in all the time anyway. :laugh:

I think you went the wrong way with that part of you mileage theory. The colder air makes more power for a given amount of fuel so I think you would also be using a lower % of throttle opening when it's cold. Winter fuel on the other hand has fewer BTU's in it so it makes less power.

If you guys are riding in this weather and you aren't getting your engine up to operating temp that could effect your mileage quite a bit even if your thermostats are working. On the track it is common practice to tape over the radiator to keep the temp up in the 180 degree range. Running below this temp is also an indication that your oil isn't up to temp and can cause accelerated wear in an engine. It might be an idea to try taping over parts of your radiators and see if that makes a difference. The nice thing about tape is if you notice it's running to hot just peel off a piece.

With 6000 miles on my 2006 that I bought new from the dealer last year, I get 38-39 around town and on back roads and 42-43 on the highway (with OEM saddlebags installed).